Great Apes and Great Plains: February 7-17, 2021

Upon arrival in Entebbe, Uganda and after completing immigration formalities and luggage claim, you’ll be met by one of our friendly drivers for your transfer to Hotel No.5.  After a welcomed shower and recovery from the long journey, we’ll meet for our Welcome Dinner.

Meals: Bed & Breakfast

Today our adventure truly begins!!! After an early breakfast, we will make our way to the National Park headquarters. After completing our park formalities, we embark on a once in a lifetime experience of tracking Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei).  This is perhaps one of the most breath-taking wildlife experiences on earth!!!  We get so close to these awesome giant primates that you stare at each other blankly not knowing who will break the long silence first. Tracking the gorillas through the light mountain forest on the slopes of the Virunga is a magical experience. These massive primates are extremely rare, with just more than 1000 living today. We will get within meters of the family and be privileged to spend an hour amongst them.

The trekking may be fairly strenuous; possibly up to six hours round trip at a relatively high altitude, approx. 2500 meters/8200 feet. We encourage you to prepare for the trek now, by doing exercise that increases your heartrate. Once off the trail we will return to our lodge for lunch. Afternoon at leisure or participate in a local activity.

Accommodation: Chameleon Hill Lodge

Meals: Full Board

Up and at’em! We fly out of the forest and be back in Entebbe in time to catch our noon flight to Tanzania. We arrive at 1:55pm in Tanzania right smack-dab in the middle of the Serengeti on the Seronera Airstrip. We’ll be met by our local safari guides and game drive en route to our first Tanzania camp for afternoon tea.

The Serengeti is the most famous wildlife area in the world. More than 4 million animals reside within its ecosystem, including a million and a half wildebeest, a quarter million zebra, twice that many gazelle, and tens of thousands of their predators (lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena, crocodile, etc.). Moreover, the vast park offers breathtaking scenery unto itself. Scattered throughout the southeastern short grass plains are kopjes, geologic wonders comprised of exposed gneiss and granite shaped by the wind and temperature fluctuations. Different environments emerge as you head deeper into the Serengeti, where you will find riverine forests, acacia woodlands, forested hills, and open grassland that create a vast geographic mosaic. We will have unlimited game drives all days in the Serengeti.

Accommodation: Kati Kati Tented Camp Serengeti is a mobile tented camp resembling the original form of tented camp of the old camps the first explorers in Africa erected with all the modern conveniences. Enjoy the unique opportunity to experience a true safari camp in style with comfortable accommodations in one of the large en suite tents. The camp has been designed to cause a minimum impact on the environment. We’ll be strategically located in the central Serengeti, with easy access to several regions of the vast plains. Delicious fresh meals are served in the cozy dining tent located in the center of camp, where an outdoor campfire is lit every evening for appetizers and snacks before dinner.

Meals: Full Board

This morning, we’ll head into the southern Serengeti where the wildebeest migrate from December through April for the birthing of the calves. We’ll have the chance to see lives come into the world as we game drive through this part of the park. We’ll be in the southern Serengeti near Lake Ndutu in the Ndutu Conservation area. Lake Ndutu is a shallow basin where water accumulates from the nearby highlands. The water is extremely saline, too saline for human consumption. Lake Ndutu becomes alive with animals during the migration because it is surrounded by the Ndutu woodlands and the short grass plains, which provide ample cover and food. The lake is full of Flamingos this time of year. Flamingos are filter feeders feeding on plankton (resembling the feeding of whales and oysters). It is their diet of these microscopic plants and animals that gives the flamingo the pink color.

Accommodation: Ndutu Kati Kati Tented Camp is a mobile tented camp that moves to follow the migration.

Enjoy the unique opportunity to experience a true safari camp in style with comfortable accommodations in one of the large en suite tents. Meals served in the cozy dining tent located in the center of camp, where an outdoor campfire is lit every evening for appetizers and drinks.

Meals: Full Board

Today we enter the world famous Ngorongoro Crater for a game drive in what is often referred to as “Africa’s Eden.” The descent into the crater, 2,500 feet below the rim, is an unforgettable experience. While only 100 square miles in area, it offers several distinct habitats: acacia forest, swamp, short grass plains, long grass plains, riverine, and woodland. Each habitat attracts a unique variety of the crater’s 30,000 resident animals, which creates a density and diversity of wildlife unseen anywhere else in Africa. We can choose between a picnic lunch in the crater or a hot lunch back at the lodge.

Accommodation: Farm House Valley Lodge

Meals: Full Board